Agile tool vendor, Version One released its “first annual Agile Salary survey” today on its website [PDF download]. The survey yielded some interesting results, that are worth mentioning here.
According to the survey, those North Americans aggressively using Agile techniques earn a premium of a 2.5% to 2.8% annually. The survey declines to speculate why this is. Certainly, you could interpret this to mean that Agile teams deliver sooner with higher quality, and thus are in higher demand. However, it is equally possible that only those projects with more experienced and valued professionals feel confident to experiment with Agile project management. Further complicating this observation is the breakdown of WHO actually responded to this survey:
Only 28% of respondants were involved in management, but 46% respondants were software engineers. When you consider, on average, that senior software engineers earn more than senior project managers, this may skew the results. That is, it could be that all members of an Agile team earn more than those using conventional project management. But it could also be Agile software engineers earn so much more than their conventional counterparts, it could mask the fact that there is little to no difference for project managers. That being said, I’m inclined to think that Agile project managers ARE in higher demand, especially when you consider the dramatic increase in Certified ScrumMasters, the attendance at Agile PM events, and increased interested by executives.
Finally, there was this added observation:
Not much surprise here: more experience earns more salary. Consider also that team members end up in the project manager role only after at least a few years on the job, and this aligns with common observation. Doing the math, each year of experience gets you another $2,724 annually. However, what is noteworthy is WHO has the requisite years under their belt:
While the agile community may be a young community of professionals (the majority are 39 years old or younger), it’s a very experienced group with the vast majority (70%) having at least 5 years or more of experience.
Bottom line? The survey doesn’t tell you why, but Agile Project Managers do earn more money.
{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
The last quote:
“While the agile community may be a young community of professionals (the majority are 39 years old or younger), it’s a very experienced group with the vast majority (70%) having at least 5 years or more of experience.”
makes me thinking about whole report with reserve. Given that:
* agile is pretty new
* it has seriously taken off just a few years ago (I’d say 3-4 years)
* it is probably the fastest growing trend in project management/software development at the moment
we should have significantly more people who jumped into agile bandwagon during last 2-3 years than folks who have 5+ years of experience. And I mean at least level of magnitude difference.
So no, I don’t believe in these results. They’re flawed in some way. Either there was something wrong with questions or surveyed group wasn’t representative or there was some other reason.
Pawel, I think you have a point. The survey drew “1,466 completed surveys with 2,786 respondants from 89 countries.” Nearly half (48%) of the respondants had more than 10 years of professional experience, but only 27% were at least 40 years old. So the survey was definitely skewed towards younger mid-career professionals. Is this because VersionOne primarily draws respondants online? Is it because agile engineering practices (TDD, CI, refactoring) are much more prevalent than agile management practices? I don’t know. But from the people I talk to in PMI circles, the vast majority are still relatively new to the agile space.
Jesse,
The statistical validity of this salary report is highly suspect. Since no source data is supplied and not correlations between the number of years experience and the salary is provides, this report is essentially marketing hype.
The problem starts with self selected respondents. The second flaw is “Project Manager” is neither defined nor separated from Scrum Master and represents on 18% of the respondent.
VersionOne folks need to go back to their high school stats class and pay attention this time.
Nice try though
Glen B. Alleman
VP, Program Planning and Controls
Aerospace and Defense
Denver, Coloroado
As much as I would love to argue with you, I really can’t. Self-selected respondants and “hidden” raw data do make the report less compelling. And since it’s a survey sponsored by an agile company, rather than an academic research project, there is indeed a conflict of interest. However, I’m not deterred from the notion that Agile practitioners are in higher demand. To prove it, I guess I’ll have to do some more digging to find additional data, or barring that, start my own research project.
I crunched some numbers last year using Indeed.com’s free online tools that expose their job data, so you may want to start there.
For example, in my research last fall the term “Agile Project Manager” resulted in $99,000.00/yr where “Scrum Master” resulted in $88,000.00/yr.
http://www.scrumology.net/2009/10/29/agile-salary-trends/
Bradley, Thanks for the line. Keep up the good writing.
David, good post. Yes, it is intresting that agile PMs make $11K more than ScrumMasters, but ScrumMasters have had a much more stable demand. However, I’d be interested to see how these compare against “project manager”. That might augment what VersionOne’s survey says.